Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Ancora Imparo

On this day in 1519, Leonardo Da Vinci died. At left is an image of the artist's self-portrait. His many achievements are well known, I think, as is a controversial book that was inspired by his works. What I appreciate about Da Vinci was his willingness to embrace learning. He famously said, "‘To develop a complete mind, study the science of art, study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.’

He was also said to have first coined the motto "Ancora Imparo" or "I am still learning." I hope to embrace this idea all of my life.

2 comments:

I guess one of the most important things in life is to never stop learning and to stay curious. It should be easy enough to do. The world is too big and full of things for even a genius like Da Vinci to learn even an imperceptible part of what there is to learn.

Book One in the Undercover Dish series

Tributes to Great Writers

International Author Interviews

Mark Twain on Writing

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."